He 'won the lottery' of Israeli politics. But Naftali Bennett remains an enigma.

The son of American immigrants, one-time elite military commando and startup entrepreneur who made a high-tech fortune has replaced his former mentor as prime minister.

Laura King / Los Angeles Times

He 'won the lottery' of Israeli politics. But Naftali Bennett remains an enigma. — The Express-Times, 15 June 2021 — The Express-Times · Easton, PA · 15 June 2021

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Naftali Bennett, Israel’s new prime minister, has long been adept at keeping a foot in disparate worlds. That shape-shifting quality proved crucial in propelling the 49-year-old politician to power in a country as deeply divided as it has been in nearly three-quarters of a century of statehood.

As the head of a small hard-line nationalist party, Bennett — son of American immigrants, one-time elite military commando, startup entrepreneur who made a high-tech fortune — is in many ways an unlikely figure to emerge from the no-holds-barred scrum of Israeli parliamentary politics with his hands on the biggest prize of all.

But a combination of happenstance, perseverance and more than a touch of raw political opportunism put Bennett in position to push aside his former friend and mentor, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when the Knesset, or parliament, held a vote of confidence on the new ruling coalition Sunday. [...] Bennett’s family home, which he shares with his wife and four children, is in the tranquil Tel Aviv suburb of Raanana, firmly inside Israel’s internationally recognized borders.

But he lived briefly in a Jewish settlement in the northern West Bank; served a stint as leader of the Yesha Council, the country’s main settlement-advocacy group; and has made maintaining Israeli control over what he refers to as Judea and Samaria — biblical names for the West Bank — the cornerstone of his political philosophy.

A backer of an annexation plan promoted by then-President Donald Trump before it was dropped, Bennett has called for settlement-building momentum to “not be stopped even for a second.” His rhetoric on Palestinians has often been incendiary, and he contends that the creation of a Palestinian state would be “national suicide” for Israel.

But he also agreed to the unprecedented inclusion of an Islamist party in the new coalition and has signaled a desire to improve the economic prospects of Israel’s Arab citizens, who make up one-fifth of the country’s population of about 9 million. [...] The rise of Bennett, viewed by many Israelis as the only means to halt an alarming slide into autocracy by Netanyahu, is being greeted with almost universal indifference or disdain by Palestinians inside and outside Israel.

Israel captured east Jerusalem, along with the West Bank and Gaza, in the 1967 war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally. The Palestinians want a state in all three territories, with east Jerusalem as its capital. Hamas, which is seen as a terrorist group by Israel and the West, does not recognize Israel.

Bitterness is running high in the wake of Israel’s recently ended fighting with Hamas, the rulers of the Gaza Strip, in which Palestinian deaths exceeded Israeli-side fatalities by a ratio of 20 to 1.

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Date confirmed on the page (masthead).

Context added by this archive

The most complete American profile of Bennett in this batch and the answer to whether his positions were softened once he reached office: here they were not.

In nine inches of type the Los Angeles Times states that he led the Yesha Council, that he backed Trump's annexation plan, that he wants settlement building never stopped, that he calls a Palestinian state 'national suicide', that his rhetoric on Palestinians 'has often been incendiary', that Israel annexed east Jerusalem 'in a move not recognized internationally', and that Palestinian deaths in the May war exceeded Israeli ones twenty to one.

It also notes the thing the wire copy never does: that Palestinians greeted his rise with 'almost universal indifference or disdain'. The one soft spot is vocabulary: 'Israel captured east Jerusalem, along with the West Bank and Gaza' - captured, not occupied, and the word 'occupation' does not appear on the page.

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"He 'won the lottery' of Israeli politics. But Naftali Bennett remains an enigma.," The Express-Times, 15 June 2021, p. A5. Covering Palestine archive, CP-2021-025. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-2021-025